Gaiiden's plan failed, as I've never replied to any of the other threads, it keeps this one relevant.

I used to go by Redbeard, as I have a reddish-brown beard. As the web got older, it became exceedingly common name, and harder to use.

In the 2001, my PC killed itself. I signed up for Yahoo to get to my mail (pop from ISP mail server) while the PC was dead. By 2001 a lot of names were taken, including Redbeard. While Yahoo helpfully offered to make me redbeard2352, I declined their kind offer. I tried something like 20 names before I gave up, typing 'namethatnobodyelsetook' in defeat, and half expecting it to be taken too. It was only meant to be a temporary account, while waiting for my PC to be revived, then discarded.

Shortly after getting a new PC, I learned that Win98SE didn't like large drives. Instead of not using the space beyond what it knew how to comprehend, would just wrap around and overwrite the critical beginning sectors of the drive. Awesome. After that, I decided to switch to web mail completely, instead of risking losing it all again. I figured Yahoo probably had a better backup plan than I did, plus I could use it anywhere. That moved the name from being an occasional use thing to being my main online name.

Continuing on my story, despite the name being explained, it's a good thing I switched to web mail. I installed Win2K to replace Win98SE (nobody trusted XP yet) to support my larger drive, as Win2K supported LBA mode. Once again, shortly thereafter, I discovered my mistake. While Win2K does indeed support LBA mode, instead of detecting it, Windows just decides to turn it off in the registry by default. Again Windows was braindead, and again just wrapped around to the beginning critical sectors of the drive.

I think every edition of Windows I've ever used has self-destructed on me eventually... Vista hasn't yet, but give it time. XP did, Win2K did, 98SE did, 98 did, I'm fairly sure 95 did too. It's a fairly impressive track record.

I urgently needed a name for some popular online service back in the day and happened to see a "Lindsay's Technical Books" catalog sitting on my desk. A little word munging gave me "Koobs Nical", which I have found is sufficiently unique to avoid number appending (to which I have a moral objection). Usually I try for just "Koobs", but that is sometimes not sufficiently unique.

Thanks Gaiiden! I was about to write almost exactly this from one of your bookmarks:

Quote:
Back in my GW-BASIC days I made up a bunch of words for one of my games (the pass-code system actually). One of those was Rix. I liked it and started using it in games (high scores etc). Sometime between then and the late nineties I added 'ter' to the end, I really can't remember at all how that happened. Been using it ever since.

Unfortunately as the interweb became more popular it started to get taken everywhere, usually by people named Rick. When taken I usually add GT to the end.
I've considered changing it, but that would be hard considering everything I've signed up for in the last 10 years has had some variation of Rixter as the name. Maybe I'll keep using it until everyone else stops? That's unlikely.

I have pretty much transitioned on online games to Bookshelf Madness, so if you play TFC you might see me.

I'll try to keep this around to quote it again in the future :).

I was just trying to come up with something unique for a gamer name. For some reason I remembered an episode of Ren and Stimpy where they came up with a cartoon character called Explodey or something. I just mispelt it and added the 'mister' at the front for a bit of reverse respect.

It all began back when Runescape was first released or maybe before then I forget really. I remember when I first tried to register with a game name I was going to use "Sirius" but that sounded like it would be too common. So I thought to myself I would be a person from a planet called "Siris" thus "Sirisian". At the time of its creation googling "Sirisian" brought up nothing. It's a unique name that only I use so it has a habit of tracking absolutely everything I do online for better or for worse.

I'm a PC

I can't find a root for mine, it just poped up, after using it for 2 years or so i looked on google and i was the only reference on it except for (iirc) a mine or some land area in a third world country that was named the same . . .

Quote: Original post by ranakor
... a mine or some land area in a third world country that was named the same . . .

It certainly sounds like it could be one of those in Middle Earth, surely a third world country :D

A character from one of my favourite books, The Mahabharata.

the surname Permen got invented for the main character of a game i was planning. my first name is dave, so when registering somewhere, i thought why not David Permen, or shorter, davepermen, as one word. was a fitting nickname, that had the great advantage to this day, that people understand it's me thanks to 'dave', and it's unique on this world. no need for numbers or anything.

and it brings up memories to the time when i invented it, and the ideas i had back then.

by today, i use this as username, nickname on all sort of web accounts, mail, etc. as well as dj name and in music production.